Thursday, September 20, 2018

I have a rule of thumb that has served me well throughout my adult life, and it’s quite simple - never trust the self-righteous. Self-righteous people are invariably the most malevolent people you’ll ever meet, and that tends to hold true regardless to whether we’re talking about politics or religion, and there’s a reason for that. The self-righteous tend to project their own character flaws upon others, so if you ever want to know what conservatives are up to, you simply pay attention to the offenses that they're accusing others of committing.
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A perfect example of that is how conservatives often refer to liberals as "Commie sympathizers," yet they enthusiastically support Donald Trump who's all but a Russian ambassador. They also tend to refer to liberals as "Godless heathens," while they support the kidnapping of children from their parents and putting them in cages. So it's no surprise that a full 81% of all White Evangelical Christians voted for Trump, because they've never seen a rapist (Kavanaugh, Trump) or child molester (Roy Moore) that they didn't think needed to be elected to office. Thus, in their assessment of others they tend to say, “Aw, they’re full of crap; I know what they're up to.” The reason they feel that way is because they assume that everyone is just as devious in their motivations and as flawed as they are, and then they delude themselves into believing that they’ve managed to turn their own character flaws into what are merely useful tools to assess others. So essentially, they believe that other people are evil, but their own malevolence is a valuable source of wisdom.
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That attitude is a fundamental part of conservative thinking. That’s what contributes to the gross perversion and religious zealotry living side by side within people Roy Moore, the highly religious child molester, and the murderous bigotry and greed living under the guise of patriotism in people like Dick Cheney and Donald Trump, and there’s a constant display of that exact same kind of delusion, malevolence and hypocrisy running throughout conservative history.
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Conservatives have suffered from this collective flaw, this blind spot in their character, going all the way back to the very beginning of this republic. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, Alexander Hamilton, one of this nation’s most conservative founding fathers, believed that the rich and "wellborn" should be given a "permanent share in government." He said:
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“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people…. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class [the rich]a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second [the people], and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”
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Hamilton supported a lifetime appointment of the President, after being selected by congress, instead of the people. Can you just imagine that, Donald Trump FOR LIFE!!!? But America dodged that bullet during the Federalist Convention that took place between May 14 and September 17, 1787.
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Since most of the founding fathers came to America to escape the aristocratic class system in Europe, Hamilton’s desire to preserve the class system was resoundingly defeated in favor of an unfettered democracy, but that didn’t mean that people of Hamilton’s point of view would quietly go away. Instead, they lowered their profile and continued to pursue their agenda by using their wealth, power, and various strategies to divide the people to achieve their goal, and that’s what we see today. That accounts for why conservatives tend to be specialists in obstructionism and division, and why the American people ALWAYS suffer under conservative governance.

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During the 70s Howard Hughes, founder of Hughes Aircraft, was world renown as one of the richest men in the world. When he died in 1976 his net worth was $1.5 billion, the equivalent of $6.45 billion in today’s dollars. But today, Jeff Bezo, the 53 year-old CEO of Amazon, is reported to have a net worth of $109.9 billion.
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According to the Economic Policy Institute, “CEO compensation increased from $1.5 million in 1978 to $16.3 million in 2014, or 997 percent, a rise almost double stock market growth. Over the same time period, a typical worker’s wages grew very little: the annual compensation, adjusted for inflation, of the average private-sector production and nonsupervisory worker (comprising 82 percent of total payroll employment) rose from $48,000 in 1978 to just $53,200 in 2014, an increase of only 10.9 percent. Due to this unequal growth, average top CEOs now make over 300 times what typical workers earn.” So, so much for Ronald Reagan and the GOP’s “Trickle Down” theory. Since Ronald Reagan entered office the rich have become exponentially richer, while the poor and middle class have essentially been marching in place, or in other words, losing ground.
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The American middle class has been in freefall every since the election of Ronald Reagan. When I was in college in the 70s my tuition was $6.50 per term, my rent for a two bedroom apartment with two baths and a swimming pool was $165 per month, and I received veterans assistance of over $600 per month. Then with my late wife's salary from Rockwell International of over $2000 per month, that allowed me to get an education while raising two children in complete middle-class comfort. But after the conservative seizure of our economy during the Reagan administration, today young people have to live with their parents and mortgage their future to obtain draconian loans just to get a college degree.
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Thus, conservative Republicans are determined to create Alexander Hamilton’s two-tier society through hook or crook, and their reckless determination to install Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court is clear evidence of that. In spite of their flag pins in their lapels and claims to be super-patriots and Evangelical Christians, they’re more than willing to support an obvious criminal and possible traitor as President of the United States, and a felonious perjurer and an attempted rapist on the Supreme Court. Just a moment's thought would suggest there's something wrong with that picture. And yes, I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh tried to rape her. After all, if she wanted to just make up a story, why would she add a friend of the accused, a hostile witness, as being on the scene? That would be stupid. And another thing that's strangely striking is if the allegation wasn't true you'd think that Kavanaugh's friend, Mark Judge, would be anxious to come forward and say, "This woman is lying on my friend," but instead, he said he doesn't want to testify. Could that be because he doesn't want to take the chance of going to jail for perjury?
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So again, the GOP has a history of treason and working against the interest of the American people to promote their own malevolent interests. Richard Nixon sabotaged President Johnson's peace talks with the North Vietnamese in order to help him in his campaign for president. That caused the loss of countless American lives. Ronald Reagan later made a deal with the Iranians to continue to hold Americans hostage until after his election, and they were released as he was taking the Oath of Office. In addition, he flooded the inner-cities with crack cocaine to support his illegal war in Nicaragua. And then during the George W. Bush administration, Dick Cheney leaked the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame in retribution against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, after he investigated and then revealed that the pretext of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq was a lie. And then there was the letter signed by 47 Republican senators to Iran:
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“As first reported by Bloomberg's Josh Rogin, a group of 47 Republican senators signed a letter addressed to "the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran," warning them not to be too optimistic about ongoing negotiations with the Obama administration over Tehran's nuclear program.”

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.So the bottom line is, while President Obama was in negotiations with Iran to prevent their further development of nuclear weapons, 47 Republicans senators signed a letter warning the Iranians not to sign it. The reason for that is since the fall of the Soviet Union they need a "Bogey Man" to justify their huge military budget that they're using to transfer the wealth of America into the hands of the top 1% of the population. That's not only against American interests, but flat-out treason..And then finally (so far), NYmag.com reported the following:."Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, according to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, Israeli intelligence officials gathered at CIA headquarters, where they were told something astonishing: Russia, the agency believed, had “leverages of pressure” over the incoming president. Therefore, the agency advised the Israelis to consider the possibility that Trump might pass their secrets on to Russia. The Israelis dismissed the warning as outlandish. Who could believe that the world’s most powerful country was about to hand its presidency to a Russian dupe? That the United States government had, essentially, fallen?."A few months later, Trump invited Russian diplomats into the Oval Office. He boasted to them that he had fired “nut job” James Comey. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” At the same meeting, Trump passed on to the Russians a highly sensitive intelligence secret Israel had captured from a valuable source inside ISIS. It was the precise danger Israel had been cautioned about.".

DRAFT-DODGIN' DONNIE

So flag pins notwithstanding, when it comes to blatant hypocrisy - especially regarding their professed love for America - conservative Republicans tend to be a most rare and highly disingenuous breed. They live to wrap themselves in the flag as if it's their personal security blanket, yet, when it comes to their horrendous assault on the nation and the American people - like shutting down the government, needlessly putting our troops in harm's way, refusing to support our vets (after they've outlived their usefulness on the battlefield), continually holding the American people hostage for the benefit of their wealthy cronies, and their blatant obstruction of any and every attempt to provide economic relief for the average American - they're prepared to engage in the most ridiculously illogical contortions to try to justify their unconscionable behavior. Even as we speak they're trying to take away the benefits of the American people, such as social Security and Medicare, to pay for their $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to the rich. They treat the American people like we're stupid. They slap us in the face, and then lecture us for causing them to injure their hand.

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Eric L. Wattree

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BIO

Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s been a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). He’s also the author of "A Message From the Hood."Some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.Eric L. Wattreehttp://www.whohub.com/wattree

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Am I a hater, you ask? You're damn right I'm a hater. I hate injustice. I hate hypocrisy. I also hate demagoguery, apathy, and the stupidity that allows it to exist. Hater? Absolutely. I'm a big time hater. I hate what I see happening to this country, and I hate watching the development of a culture that embraces ignorance with a stupid sense of pride. So yes, I am indeed a hater, but not only that - I'm a hater with a very low threshold for bullshit, so step off.